


The Swan-Jones Christmas Special

by Inaccessible Rail (strangetales)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, archive warning: christmas traditions, archive warning: emma swan grew up rough, archive warning: for a secret santa event, archive warning: grinch references, archive warning: holiday garbage, archive warning: killian jones ain't about it, archive warning: snickerdoodles, archive warning: twinkle lights
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 14:54:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13149018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangetales/pseuds/Inaccessible%20Rail
Summary: When you’re living your “Happily Ever After,” there’s no reason you can’t start enjoying the holidays. A happily married, post-S6 holiday extravaganza.





	The Swan-Jones Christmas Special

**Author's Note:**

  * For [just_another_classic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/just_another_classic/gifts).



The first Christmas after she bears the official title of being someone’s “wife,” (which, when in the hell did _that_ happen) Emma Swan-Jones decides that she is no longer obligated to be such a Grinch.

“I’m sorry, a what?”

“A ‘Grinch,’ Killian, my God.”

In her worn, imaginary copy of _The Sad Orphan’s Handbook for Fairytale Saviors with Wretched and Otherwise Tragic Backstories_ , celebrating the holidays is one of those things that naive, mistakenly happy people do because they don’t know any better. Because they would rather be happy and dumb than smart and depressed (and obviously lacking a basic understanding of the evils of American capitalism). Up until only a few years ago, the holiday season had been nothing more than a way to convince people with no money to spend all of their money. An excuse for people who don’t get along (and usually with good reason) to be forced into the same room with one another, drinking away their disagreements and ignoring the inevitable truth of their lives: that nothing matters and the holiday season is an illusory, peppermint-flavored garbage festival.

 _No more_ , she thought stubbornly, trying and failing not to grin at the sight of Main Street all lit up and festive on the first of December. Nevermind the fact that Christmas was still, like, 3 weeks away, and putting up decorations this early and playing Christmas music non-freaking-stop at Granny’s is unbelievably annoying, and—this was gonna be a little bit harder than she thought.

* * *

After they watched the _original_ , 1960s version of _How the Grinch Stole Christmas_ , and Killian had a somewhat clearer idea of what Emma might have meant when she said that she no longer felt compelled to be a “Grinch,” he was still somewhat befuddled by the expression. Which was still just as charming as ever, but sometimes she wished she didn’t have to crack open her heart quite so much.

“Are you suggesting that your heart is of an unusual size, love? Because I hate to tell you this, but I have _seen it_.”

“Yeah, don’t remind me,” she says on a huff, pressing a hand against her sternum as if looking for the beat of the thing. “So?” he asks again, giving her a playful nudge, “What does it mean to not be a ‘Grinch,’ as you say?”

Sometimes she feels herself becoming quite sick at the prospect of having to share yet another one of her pitiful childhood memories (wondering if he hasn’t grown a bit sick of hearing it yet), but in order to really explain to him the whole, “embracing the holiday season” thing, he does kind of need the context.

“I know the Enchanted Forest,” trying _desperately_ not to cringe when those words pass her lips, “didn’t really ‘celebrate’ in the same way this world seems to—”

“I don’t know,” he interrupts thoughtfully, “we had the odd celebration from time to time. I know I certainly stopped caring once I was at sea, but, it was known to happen.”

She’s not going to argue with him, and he is probably right, but she knows that there’s absolutely no way that the celebrations in magical, fairytale place were ever anywhere near as over-the-top as this world’s. For one thing, no constant, looping holiday music from every speaker in existence. No holiday-themed food and drink and movies and television—no constant, living reminders of the fact that the holidays are a special time for family and friends and some people don’t _have any of those_.

“I wanted it,” she begrudgingly admits, “at first.”

At a younger age, before she realized that it was folly to want such things. She desperately wanted the music, and the shopping, and the baking of the cookies. She wanted the nicely wrapped presents under the tree, and the large, obnoxious family dinners. And in retrospect, of fucking _course_ she wanted those things. What small child, awash in the light and warmth of the holiday, _wouldn’t_ want those things?

There was of course, the rather unfortunate truth, that Emma Swan had not been placed in the ideal situation for achieving optimal holiday bliss.

“Most of the homes I was in,” she explains, to the aggrieved look on her husband’s face, “didn’t really care. Or didn’t have the money to.”

She has incredibly vivid memories of asking for things—nothing extravagant or complicated, but just, ya know, _basic_. Can I get a coloring book for Christmas? Can we bake some cookies today? Can we go get a tree? And to all of these questions, at any point in time before her pre-teen years, the answers were almost always disappointing, tinted with anger, or downright cruel. A lot of them often followed the, “Do you think you’re special?” theme, as if an orphaned nobody would have the gall to suggest that she be treated like any other kid in her class.

“Well,” Killian says after a pause in her recollections, trying and failing to avoid touching his wife, when all he wants to do is wrap her in his arms and never let her leave the house, “that settles that, then.”

She looks back at him with a question in her expression, the small frown fighting to stay in place despite the fact that she has suddenly found herself locked in an almost _painful_ hug. Not that this sort of thing hasn’t happened before.

“Christmas, Swan. You shall never want for a proper holiday celebration again. I swear it.”

“This isn’t Buckingham Palace, ya know,” she replies sardonically, again, trying to keep from laughing and pathetically losing this game they always seem to be playing, “we can just bake cookies or something, you don’t need to embark on a noble quest to defend my honor or something equally stupid.”

“You know very well I have no idea what that means, darling,” a large, absurd smile, and a wet, warm kiss on her cheek, “but defending your honor will always be one of my very highest priorities.”

* * *

Killian Jones spends the next few years making certain that every single one of their Christmases post-wedding is practically over-laden with holiday cheer. One year, that same year she had made her enthusiastic pledge to fully and unequivocally embrace all the holiday flim-flam, she had returned home from the station to find an unreal number of lights decorating nearly every inch of their property. From the understated, white twinkle lights to the large, retro-looking bulbs in shades of various primary colors—their entire house was practically a fire hazard; hung in the usual places, lining the rooftop, wrapped around the bannister, and even lined along the walls of their bedroom (for “mood”).

He also started pushing out more cookies than the Keebler Elf, which she pretended to be upset about until he caught her stuffing them in her face in the middle of the night. He experiments with a number of sizes, flavors, and colors, shopping them around to friends and family members, trying to discover the perfect combinations. The snickerdoodles are Emma’s favorite, especially when he “accidentally” drops in more cinnamon than the recipe had called for (which drives him a bit “batty,” but it’s worth it).

And before she knows it, these small, silly, typically Killian Jones-type things become something like… tradition? Swan-Jones family traditions. There are lights every year, no matter how busy they seem to get (with her parents, or Henry, or some other magical bullshit), and they watch the same movies every Christmas Eve ( _How the Grinch Stole Christmas_ , of course). And when the unexpected finally happens, and she’s only just begun to show a bit round middle, there’s always a small plate of cookies set aside for her cravings in the middle of the night.

* * *

“Ah,” he says quietly, a warm hand resting between her breasts and swollen belly, a heart beating in tandem with hers ( _both_ of them), “Just as I thought.”

“What’s that?” she asks sleepily, with the barest comprehension of whatever romantic nonsense he’s spewing at this particular moment. “Your heart, darling,” and she opens her eyes just wide enough to see his face aglow with the warm light of their tree, “just about three sizes too big.”


End file.
